Thank you Club Smart Car! Car in Storage for 9 months!

[PowerShellMan 12]

Had my little 2006 Blue Passion "CMDLET" in Storage for the last while (no space, big monster 2006 Suburban ate the driveway space and 2nd Smart in Garage)

 

Went to start after charging the battery.  Kicked about like a Bronco and similar to running on 1 cylinder.   

 

I used many "Incantations" at this point until I went online and the FIRST hit was of course "Club Smart Car"

 

REPEATLEDLY the phrase "Alternator Stuck" came up over and over and over...

 

Ok... Please .... please ... PLEASE let it be this

 

Pop off the liner on Passenger rear, loosen the 15mm bolt, grab one pry bar to move said alternator

 

22mm socket on alternator.... 5 minutes of wiggle, squeak and satisfaction it's now moving.

 

One turn.... and *VOOM!* running immediately!

 

Thank you Club Smart Car for being that resource...

 

Next on my list for the summer, replace the muffler with a Stock one (I need this car to stop sounding like a race car) and finally swap in a Clean EGR.

 

Woohoo!

 

[Willys 748]

How bad is the leak or rusting on the bottom of the can? They can be welded back up, not pretty but it means not paying HUGE for a new exhaust.....I have done many but you must be able to weld paper thin material with a machine that goes down to that level.   

[PowerShellMan 12]

@Willys There is a leak but before there was the bigger issue is this muffler is NOT a Smart Car one but a Generic one.  Missing the Catalytic in there.   So my white one (before I sold it) the muffler on it WAS stuck and it was day and night on the sound even before I had to use it to "push CMDLET into the garage" (which is how it acquired it's most recent leak :P) .   

 

So even if I fix the muffler (which was a cheap aftermarket one) I'd rather drop the $$$ and grab one from a Scrapyard or even new.  I know new they are pricy because it's a combo Muffler/Catalytic and the money is in the Catalytic.   But I can justify that because the current "Racy sounding Muffler" is driving my tinitus bananas in the left ear

Actual underside of this Smart is VERY nice.   Not a rot bomb at all.

 

For performance I'm down to either the EGR is choking and killing the Power on accel or the Turbo is flaky.   It will get to Highway speeds (It holds at 125km flipping between 6 and 5 depending on uphill / downhill) but the acceleration on the White one (Same exact year and a Pure to boot) was WAY peppier than CMDLET (2006 Passion) with a newer engine.  Looks like they are pretty cheap on eBay from the. I'll grab one swap it in, then take the old one for a cleaning session.  See if I can breathe life into it.

 

And CMDLET starts up WAY better so I'm "99%" the engine is fine and something supporting it all is acting up.  

I mean I guess I *COULD* boost up CMDLET's acceleration by hooking the Suburban tow to it and making it move THAT way, but that would defeat the point of having the Smart Car

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by PowerShellMan

[Willys 748]

You sure it's the EGR maybe it's a fuel issue..??   Bad injectors not squirting well, nozzles plugged?  OR, a weak high pressure pump not delivering enough fuel at optimum pressure?   There are a few options to deal with or look into.  My beater gets incredible fuel mileage numbers and those above items are the oinly real things I have done to it to gain the fuel economy. Oh yes I have removed the CAT inside the stock can.  New nozzles are great and used to be a semi cheap fix over replacing the entire injector.....but you need to sonic clean the injector well then install the new nozzles....a high pressure gasket kit isn't expansive either, but I would recommend new head valves when you rebuild it as the small coil springs seem to like to collapse resulting in poor pressures, the EGR was simply cleaned out using gasoline, yep the best environmentally product there is...lol....but it worked the best imho. But I also removed it all any way and installed a Stickman007 emulator, solved that issue for a good price.   Oh also check your inter cooler rad for a rub through.  I'm sure you have heard all this before.....it's only money, you can't take it with you and the kids can earn their own...imho...lol.
Just what I have done and I get on average 80 mpgs or better than 3.5 litres per hundred kms driven.

 

I consider it a game now to see how little I can use to make me feel better about the cost of fuel....lol. Not to mention the less the gov't makes off my driving fun.....lol.

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Willys

[PowerShellMan 12]

Good fun project for the summer!  I'll look at "Cleaning things up first".  I think I ran some engine cleanup stuff once but I'll bet removing the injectors and letting them sit in some project Gasoline to clean them up sure wouldn't hurt!

 

80 MPG?  I heard they were supposed to do 75 (I've gotten as good as 65 mpg on a regular 80km /hr road) but hearing that 80 is possible.

 

VERY nice

[450ken 21]

You could save yourself a lot of time by just cleaning your fuel system with https://www.hotshotsecret.com/diesel-extreme/

My 06 got 57 mpg imperial gallons combined city/hwy but it has heated seats, AC, ect all power consuming acc.

[Leadwing 565]

9 hours ago, PowerShellMan said:

   It will get to Highway speeds (It holds at 125km flipping between 6 and 5 depending on uphill / downhill)

 

It should be able to get to highway speeds quickly enough for the type of car that it is.  It should also be able to reach and run at an indicated 140 on level ground. Both of mine do this with no issues and the '05 winter beater has about 218,000 kms on it.

[MikeT 747]

155 on level ground for my remapped version (ScanGauge measured).

 

120-125 is too low, so the engine's weak if that's all you've got.

[PowerShellMan 12]

@Willys Some quick questions on your list

 

"a weak high pressure pump not delivering enough fuel at optimum pressure?"

Is this a part of the fuel pump in the tank or is there a different location to check for that one?

"Oh yes I have removed the CAT inside the stock can." 

Do you mean the Catalytic converter from the normal Mercedes Muffler ?  I want mine to be super quiet.  The previous 06 Pure I had ran quiet so I am presuming it's the stock muffler.  Looking for a recommendation on a muffler to keep this from sounding like a little race car.

"New nozzles are great and used to be a semi cheap fix over replacing the entire injector"

Silly question, there's a difference? I "assumed" they were one and the same.   Still learning about this beast

"....a high pressure gasket kit isn't expansive either, but I would recommend new head valves when you rebuild it as the small coil springs seem to like to collapse resulting in poor pressures"

Presuming that is part of a rebuild.  Well outside my skillset

"the EGR was simply cleaned out using gasoline, yep the best environmentally product there is.."

That one makes sense, I've read if it *is* dirty to try actually cleaning it up first vs "Cough up your inheritance to Mercedes"

"Oh also check your inter cooler rad for a rub through."

Are you suggesting it got a massage or do you mean the fan might be running on it's container?

 

Thanks greatly for the input.   It runs "good" but I would love to see it running like the '06 Pure I sold off

[Willys 748]

Hmmmmm......
You have a low pressure fuel pump and a high pressure fuel pump, low is in tank and has SAM issues that get solved by using a relay to keep the pins from over heating, the high pressure pump is on the left end of the cylinder head and it's seals get old and leak along with the inner head valve's coil springs get deformed or trapped and allow pressure to leak past them causing lower fuel pressures.
The CATT is inside the muffler and requires a skilled welder to repair the cam after you cut it open to remove the CATT and you do this simply to gain a bit better air flow, after doing this is may get smelly while sitting at a light as the CATT help burn up some of the unburnt fuel smells.
Injectors have many parts and the nozzles are the part that spray the fuel in a specific pattern and where within the cylinder. The better the spray pattern , the better the car runs, and that means effiency also.  The injectors need to ne sonic cleaned and then new nozzles replaced and you save big bucks of=ver buying new injectors or having a shop service your injectors for you. A sonic cleaner larger enough is roughly $200 from China or maybe Princess Auto if they have any left. Nozzles are at last pricing $88 each up from $50 6 months ago.
The high pressure gasket set is a semi easy thing to do if you can hold a wrench and keep your work area clean. It's simply a "O" ring set you replace in the high pressure fuel pump. That is also where the head valve's are that I mentioned above.  IF you can do a jig saw puzzle you should be able to do any mechanical work imho because that is all any machine is, an adult 3D jig saw puzzle, no..?
The inter cooler rad rub through is when the inter cooler scoop which is on the forward side of the inter cooler rad lives, it touches the i8nter cooler rad tubes and over time rubs back and forth to wear a hole in the inter cooler rad tubes resulting in a lack of turbo pressure and a bad oil leak.  It can be repaired by using JB-Weld but that takes time and patience and the work area again must be spotless for the JBto adhere correctly, OR you either find a good used one or you buy a new one.
The fan usually doesn't  rub on the rad unless it has come loose or grenaded itself, I haven't seen one yet bad enough to do this.
You need to research all the typical issues Smarts get and work your way through the list to make sure your car hasn't suffered from any on the list and also do the fix's or by-passes to stop the issues from happening.

I always say, a car is simply a jig saw puzzle for adults, if you think of it this way you can take it apart and then reassemble it correctly. Simply take one part off and p0lace it on a piece of cardboard , then take the next part of and place right next to the first as if you were writing a letter, and so on......when time comes to rebuilding it, simple work backwards.
In today's age we have cell phone which take pics and video.....use it...nothing better than many many pics of what it looked like before and as you take things off, piece by piece.  It's how you learn.

 

Good luck....